These look like little plants in the photo but they are full grown trees, but these are Tiaga trees. Very old, limited by the permafrost below and the short growing season. In our guidebook it says that Tiaga means land of little sticks in Russian: "This boggy landscape of bottle brush trees" where a 2 inch diameter black spruce tree might be 100 years old. They have to spread roots horizontally because of the permafrost which prevents drainage of the soil. Also the ladder like branches provide a route for fire to climb the trees easily reaching the top quickly. This causes the bundles of pine cones to open for a new generation.
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